An All Hallow's Love
by Alicorn
Summary: Fraggle Rock. After yet another rejection from Matt, Harriet the storyteller is all but ready to give up...Until she hears a new story, the tale of the ghost of the perfect knight...Series Prequel, FINISHED!
1. Chapter 1

**An All Hallow's Love**_ (A Tale)  
_

Page number fifty-seven. Wonderful, wonderful, glorious page number fifty-seven.

The stress lines upon the side of the small, thinly leather-bound pocket size book spine told the tale of how many generations of fraggle females had been taken in by the unbridled lust of that page more than any storyteller ever could.

Not that the _current_ storyteller, who was at page number fifty six and giggling loudly , would not have been happy to try if asked.

But of course, like many unspoken parts of fraggle culture, the juicer plot points of the ending from _Furlined Passions_ was hardly thought of as _silly_ or _serious_ enough to be talked about in polite company.

The storyteller wiggled her feet happily where she lay on her stomach, still in bed in her living cave adjoining the main storytelling chamber at half pass lunch time.

Her breath caught in her throat as she leaded in with an intense gaze, turning the page quickly to the fabled paragraphs when...

"Harriet! Harriet! Are you home? I've come concerning a matter of great importance to fraggle kind!"

The strong resounding tones of a young male fraggles voice mixed with the words she had just been reading made her pale yellow form nearly jump two feet in the air and melt at the same time, a sudden ability that ended with Harriet laying sprawled among the piles of books on her bedside floor.

"Yes, I am! Just a moment!" She called to the voice and knock beyond her door.

She tucked the moon and star embossed cover with the shadows of a windswept princess and dashing prince under a dusty respectable looking copy of _Cavemoss and You: A Match Made In Dampness_ and made her way to the main cave.

It looked smaller than it truly was, barely big enough for a shell-less hermit. Harriet tisk-tisked herself silently for not making her place of work more respectable looking lately.

Most of all, of course, when it was about to be seen by HIM.

She ran a hand though her wild frizzy mop of pink hair self consciously, opening the door with much flair a moment later.

"Come in, come in! So sorry to keep you waiting! I was just...um...researching valued lore for the Eternal Anthologies..."

"Ah, well then, I won't take up too much of your time." The sandy colored fraggle said, walking into the cave with a wide well practiced stride.

"Oh, you're more welcome to _all_ my time if you need anything, anything at all Matt..."

Harriet laughed, shadowing him silently as soon as she closed the door behind him.

The barely middle aged fraggle that had entered was dressed in the everyday outfit of the rocks' resident explorer. His handsome mustache that was the trademark of his family tree was just starting to fill out, it's yellow color laced with strands of white.

"Well, you see Harriet, _I_, the rocks' _famous_ Traveling Matt was hoping that you as the storyteller could give me some most _valuable_ information from some of those books you're always looking at..."

All and all he was the very picture of male fragglness to the young storyteller, a fragglness she had been trying to get her baloobius on for quite some time now.

All her previous hinting and flirting had been for nothing...

But oh, not today...Today she had a _plan_...

"Of course, of course, Mattykins..." She nodded forcing herself away from were she had put her head upon his shoulder all the while he had been talking without even being noticed.

"I have a few new places in mind for my next expedition, if you could just fill some _tiny_ spots in my great wealth of wisdom about their present safety for _mere_ mortal fraggles."

He rattled on, standing like a hero about to get his picture painted by an invisible master.

The storyteller nodded, picking up the first book within reach from a pile near her reading stool, and quickly hiding the real title (_The Care and Keeping of Your Spiderfly_) from Traveling Matt's view.

"Here we are, the most up to date volume on all the caves of fraggle rock." She said with a winning smile.

"My, that was quick." Matt remarked, turning from his pose in bewilderment.

"I've gotten good at my job lately...But I'm still nowhere near as good as you are at _yours_, Matt of My Heart." She cooed sweetly.

"Certainly not, why it takes years and _years_ to get to my _sheer_ level of..."

Matt swelled his chest outward a bit as he fished around in his jacket, coming back with a small piece of parchment.

"Ah, here we are...Now, lets see...Wonder Mountain?"

Harriet winced a bit at the question. Here it was the perfect opportunity to make her plan work...

But the storyteller code to always tell the truth to any listener who asked for answers was already beginning to nag at the back of her mind.

"The Avalanche Monster is hibernating on the road again." She spoke clearly and surely.

That was the truth after all.

"Why that _lazy_ oaf...Well then, the Snareroot Valley?

Stick to the plan, just remember the plan...

Her eyes darted down the pages that told her nothing as she flipped to a random chapter.

"F...flooded I'm afraid."

That wasn't exactly lying, there _was_ a leak in the cavern ceiling after all.

"Oh dear, it must have been a terrible downpour in upper rock for us to have never heard it here."

"The silent storms are the very worst."

She agreed, bracing herself against looking into his warm trusting eyes as he glanced up from the last item on the list.

"The Trail of Autumn Enlightenment?"

Here it was the moment of...em...truth.

If she could just get the words out, _any_ words, then she would be able to be the one _doing_ the asking...

Her mouth felt like sandpaper as she blurted out the first full blown lie that came to mind.

"Out of season!"

Traveling Matt turned his head to the side ever so slightly, looking at the glasses framed bookish fraggles' head as if she had just caught an instant case of the pebble pox.

"Out of season, in _autumn_?"

Harriet laughed, her words edged with a nervous twitch.

"In autumn? No of course it is not out of season in _autumn_. How silly, did I say that? I meant it was in season in the _other_ autumn, the autumn one based on the calendar of the Elder Clan we modern fraggles don't use anymore. So _their_ and the _trails'_ autumn is actually _our_ spring."

She took a deep breath, the weight of the tall tale suddenly pushing down on her lungs.

"You _understand_ don't you?"

Matt stood, looking glassy eyed for a moment, his mouth slightly agape before he regained his ever present composer.

" Certainly...why I knew that ages ago! I was just..um, testing _your_ know how on the matter. You have to be sharp to keep such a _important_ title as storyteller after all..."

"Nothing makes me feel more important than getting to help _you_ Matt."

The yellow fraggle replied, cleaning her glasses as if to wipe off the dirtiness of what she had just done and replace it with the clean, honest part of her plan.

"But I know a place that will be nice and romantic...I mean, great to _explore_ on your expedition tomorrow instead..."

"Really? _Where_?" The tan fraggle asked with interest, leaning closer as the storyteller batted her purple shadowed eyes.

"The Gorg's garden at the annual Pumpkin Festival." She whispered near his unseen ear.

"Hmph, what sort of exploring would that be? Why, everyone will _be_ there!" He huffed.

"Exploring the time honored tradition of _dating_! What do you think? Isn't there something you'd like to ask me? Just for _once_ Mattykins?"

She cuddled up to his clay colored fur as close as she dared and played with a lock of it that lay over his collar.

"Yes, Harriet, now that you mention it there is..."

"Yes...?" She asked heavily, leaning in just a breath away from pressing his muzzle to her own.

"Are you sure the Snareroot Valley is flooded _that_ badly? If I wore _boots_ maybe I..."

"Why...why.._You_!" The young fraggle exploded as if a bucket of ice water had just been dumped over her head.

"Out! **OUT**!" She screamed, forcing the tall lean fraggle in all his imagined splendor though her doorway and right into a halfway dried up mud puddle. "And take _this_ with you... you... _chad_!"

The great Traveling Matt blinked in shock as his equally great trademark pit helmet was jettisoned into the muck near his knees.

"Hello? Hello? Harriet?" He called in a small sounding voice at the shadow of the slammed door.

"I do have some very _tall_ boots for just such an..."

The Storyteller slammed down her window shutter and heard no more.

* * *

The three other fraggles that had joined the storyteller around her small circular dining table sipped from their small daisy carved cups wordlessly in a moment of silent reflection, eyeing the bent over barely propped up heap that was their host.

The short heavy set light blue fraggle with white hair in the middle of the group was the first to speak, her voice high pitched and a bit tone deaf.

"Well, what can I say... I told you so."

The tall lilac fraggle with blue hair beside her nearly gagged on her drink, patting Harriet on the shoulder, her own voice with a rich highborn accent.

"Indigo, can't you see the poor thing is in pain?"

The talkative fraggle did not seem to notice.

"My philosophy has always been..."

"Oh dear, not that silly philosophy of yours again..." The lilac fraggle groaned, taking another sip from her cup to hide the face of the small fraggle who was at the moment trying her best to be viewed by her taller neighbor.

"My philosophy has always been to tell the _truth_, Merri. And in this case the truth is as clear as doozer sticks:"

She walked around the other side of the table, putting a hand on the storytellers other shoulder.

"Harriet got dumped."

"Just leave me alone everyone." Harriet spoke in a tearful whisper, shrugging off Indigo and Merri's hands and throwing herself headlong into the pillows on her small sofa.

"Now, you see Harriet dear, that is your _whole_ trouble." Merri began with a wise waving of her finger.

Indigo rolled her eyes, whispering to herself.

"Here we go, and she gets at me for _my_ philosophy..."

"You want what you _don't_ have and when you actually _get_ an opportunity for love you don't do any of the _work_."

Merri shook her head with a knowing expression, talking out a gold painted wooden locket that was around her neck on a piece of twine. She opened it to reveal a tiny painting of a stately looking pink fraggle with a curled yellow goatee.

"Males have to be _caught_, trained, and _molded_ to do things you want. You can't expect them to bring themselves of their own _free will_ gift warped. It just isn't _done_, not _anymore_..."

"Unless, you believe that new story..." The small sunny voice of the third fraggle of the group that had been silent this whole time chimed in carefully.

"New story?" The storyteller asked the skinny looking yellow fraggle hopefully.

"Constance, you really shouldn't be talking, here, drink some more tea." Indigo spoke softly, handing another cup in her friends direction.

"I've had enough tea..." The medium sized fraggle fumed with a loud cough as she turned her head away, making the long ponytail of her light yellow hair whip around her face.

"The story about the new _ghost_ the magic of the rock has finally drawn back to the surface..."

She made spooky motions for added effect in the line of storyteller's face from a distance.

"The knight of _true love_, locked sleeping in a rock..."

"The one all the young fraggle girls have been trying to wake up with enhanced _incense_" Merri let out an over the top flat laugh. "Oh come now, Constance, you can't actually _believe_ that!"

"I'm not saying I believe it, but it is a lovely _romantic_ story, don't you think?" Constance muffled a cough with her hand, her eyes glazing over behind her short muzzle. "A dashing white knight..."

"The only place you're seeing dashing is the _dashing_ you're doing right back to bed!" Indigo said with a business like glare that her friend returned with a sheepish grin, hiding behind the rim of her tea cup.

"Oh, I think it is a _wonderful_ story..." Harriet squealed, clapping her hands together. "Have any of you tried to...?"

Two arms and one tail wearing bracelets woven with gold thread were presented to her eyes at the same time.

"Lifemated." Came the chorus of voices.

"Wha...When did..." The storyteller gapped in shock, as if the world beyond books had suddenly began to spin much too fast.

"Five years ago." Merri spoke in her usual formal tone, wrinkling her muzzle ever so slightly. "Didn't I tell you about the matter some time ago?"

"Last year." Indigo added, moving her wrist so the golden silk caught the light. "For some reason he couldn't stop _crying_..."

"Two months ago, you _came_ to the ceremony remember?" Constance said softly, tucking her tail back underneath her chair for safekeeping.

"I guess I just don't think about it very often..." Harriet said, looking downward in unspoken apology.

"In any account we are all much too _happily_ mated to put any stock in silly school-fraggle ghost stories..." Merri said, lowering her voice as if worried the walls themselves would overhear the issue.

"Really Harriet you should be to, it's not _healthy_ for someone of your age..."

The storyteller lay back farer upon the sofa, as if her visitors words had struck an invisible blow, one that could not in anyway imaginable get worst than she was feeling...

"At the rate your going my little baby Red will have a date before you do." Indigo nodded in helpful agreement.

It was worst.

Harriet half buried her head in pillows, still able to hear muffled words.

"We should really be going..." The muffled Merri said, fading into the distance.

"I believe you'll find a husband Harriet.." A small voice spoke weakly beside her one partially exposed ear. "I'm sure Matt will turn around someday, he's a good fraggle."

"Thank you Constance but I'm not so sure anymore..." She said with a sob into the pillow feathers. "At least it's nice to know I still have friends who care."

"Of course, friends are suppose to care, not make fun of you..." The fraggles words were cut short by a fit of wet sounding coughs.

The storyteller's eye peeped out of her safe pillow cocoon in concern, only to see the short form of Indigo half carrying, half dragging the much taller yellow fraggle toward the door.

" Constance I swear, if I have to tie you into bed to make you rest and get better I will!"

"But I am feeling better Indigo..." Constance replied, now hanging onto the storyteller caves door frame for dear life with all eight fingers and a couple toes.

"Really I..." Her voice was broken by sharp coughing. "Oh drat!"

"Such language!" The unseen Merri gasped in disapproval from outside.

"Nooo! Freedom, fresh air, please don't make me go back..."

Constance yelled overdramaicly as the combined might of her two friends together wrenched her slipping fingers from the frame slowly in the direction of her bed, and another cup of gooseberry tea...


	2. Chapter 2

It was the type of investigation that practically demanded to be done on a dark, starlit night.

But, as she made her way slowly though the nearly deserted pitch black tunnels carrying only a small torch, Harriet could not help but silently curse her need for appropriate atmosphere.

It had not been hard to find out in which direction this new magical item had made its appearance in the rock.

Since two hours ago a steady stream of young girl fraggles, in herds of two and three had been slowly dwindling down from the top of Goldengrass Hill.

The storyteller tried to block out each new burst of excited whispering she overheard as they each passed by, flashes of a time that seemed suddenly to be so far behind her now.

It was just research. She coached herself mentally.

Yes, she was the rocks' storyteller. It was her _job_ to search out each and every detail of a new story that happened in the rock. This had nothing to do with a desperate pitiful last effort at love...

She stood up a little straighter, the very picture of a self assured fraggle on a mission of education, when suddenly the loud hooting of a large tree creature overhead made her shrink back into a nervous slump.

And yet maybe after all...

Around her the darkness and the flicker of torchlight played a game of uneven tag . Mist collected in pools, only to be pushed slowly by the heartbeat that was the continuous winds of the caves.

Try as she might to not listen to them, she still heard the whispered voices of the passing travelers.

Their many questions weaved together in slow steady somewhat unnerving beat that set the rhythm to words that began to surface in her mind.

"_**He didn't appear?" "Why won't he notice me?" "Maybe its how I do my hair?" "Will I get my first kiss before I'm twenty-three?" "Is it so wrong if I just tie him to a tree?" "Why am I so shy?" "What is he thinking?"**_

"_**Whywhywhy? What is that the old ones' say? What is love? What is love anyway?"**_

Their mostly all talking about _other_ males they know..Funny, how something like the legend of a perfect one has that sort of effect. She thought, trying her best to appear like she was not singing a song worthy of a fraggle half her age under her breath to this shadow laced chorus.

Oh, it had been far too long since she sang songs from her _own_ storyline for once.

_**Is love a flower or a tree in the wind?**_

_**A passing dream that wilts after an hour, or whips in the strongest wind?**_

The wind seemed to answer, mixing its spooky low hum for up on the hillside with the loud croaks of two inkspots that hopped along beside her, drawn to the sound of a well practiced fraggle singing voice.

_**I thought I knew the answer but now where do I began?**_

_**Is love a flower or a tree in the wind?**_

_**Does love have a vain bright color like the passing glory of the torn laced rose?**_

The wind grew stronger as the last of the young fraggle girls that came before the storyteller made a hasty, spinning, retreat downwards...

_**Or does it grow with the steady common green of a weeping willow do you suppose?**_

Moments later, along with a cloud of bright yellow and orange fall leaves, the inkspots' suction cup like webbed gave way from the stone floor, sending the small creatures spinning like living tumbleweeds.

_**I thought that my hearts hourglass of hope was an oak but every now and then...**_

_**There's a petal, a small petal...in the wind...**_

The last notes of the song fainted way as the figure of the fraggle, alone save for her own shadow, finally reached the top of the hill.

She placed her torch in the small new looking holder hanging from a stalactite, noting silently how the wind happened to have suddenly died down to a breeze that barely bent the flame.

The magic was heavy here, _whatever_, or _whoever_ truly was the cause of it.

Harriet allowed herself a dry gulp, drinking in all the details of the place as she turned, writing them down on a fresh white page in her mind for future retelling.

The rock, in a all its real or unreal power did look a bit like a fraggle, but only just.

A small indent after the rounded point of the stalagmite suggested a head. Around its length, nearly a foot taller than her own, shallow lines, much too neat to be craved by hundreds of years of dripping water alone, looked like the hem of a cloak. A small rock to one side rose up to meet the later nearly like the length of a tail at a certain angle.

But it was the base that the stone rested on the made the storyteller's heart suddenly jump into her throat: It was real after all!

The wide circle of cracks that was the universal symbol for magic among all races of fraggle rock was a wonderful thing to see. After all, even the most learned of the wizards hardly used it anymore, even in drawings of the Solemn Mark of the Fraggle where it had once made up the marks belly, traditionally.

The circle with its intricate weaves like the lines of a spiderfly web had been outlined many times over with the sticks of chalk nearby, each new layer of hue accompanied by a stick of intense placed in shallow holes around the outermost rim.

For once, in all her ten years as a storyteller, Harriet had lost her place in wonder.

It's research. It's only research..You can just walk away now and fill in the missing details with artistic license later.

No one would be the wiser. You could make him a monster, that's more exciting than a ghost, everyone wants to hear a monster story again...

She bit down on her mouth sharply, shaking her head once to clear it.

No, _someone_ would be the wiser. _She_ would, and that was one audience she can never send away complaining of a headache.

She reached for a piece of pink chalk, turning it over a couple of times in her hand nervously.

It was just a magic circle..what trouble could possibility come of invoking one (very small) magic circle?

For ten minutes the hillside was filled with nothing but the slow scratch of chalk on stone and the breezes' mumbled conversation with a handful of sleepy crickets.

"There now!" The fraggle remarked at last to herself, sitting back to admire her handwork as she wiped a pink dusted hand across her brow.

The bright cheerful chalk color stood against the drab gray surrounding the pattern, picking up the tiny amount of light off the dying embers from the once strong torch fire.

Alright, a magic circle was one thing, but enhanced incense? The oldest symbol of fraggle love?

_Maybe Merri was right, maybe I really am too old for silly made up romantic stories like this..._

But...oh...what if? Just what if it was true?

_I just can't let this chance go by, not like all the other chances..all those many years..._


	3. Chapter 3

Her hand trembled with a anticipation as she reached up on tip toe to light the stick of rosemary incense with the last remains of the torch fire, before it give into the darkness of night.

The tiny flame at the sticks end flickered as if sharing its' creators' nervousness, flickering once, twice, before being brought to rest in one of the magic rings' many holders.

Harriet slipped off her glasses, cupping her hand around one side of the feeble fire... and blew.

The thin finger of smoke danced upward with a heavy scent that the whole world seemed to breathe in that frozen moment... A world that was not happy at all.

The wind returned so instantly with its' fearsome roar that the fraggle screamed, gripping onto the nearby rock as the aunts uncles and 2nd cousins' of the inkspots that had been her backup singers went whizzing by. In a new shower of autumn leaves, a very bewildered looking doozer followed, clinging to the end of its' airborne doozerstick bed.

Harriet squeezed her eyes tightly shut against the raging elements as a long trail of pure white smoke drifted upward from every corner of the mountain top, forming itself into a large shimmering ball above the magic circle , where finally it found a voice.

Unfortunately for Harriet, the only voice it had on hand happened to be the thunderous one of a giant who had not had a good nights sleep in centuries.

"**Who is the maiden who dare think her love **_**worthy**_?"

Harriet gulped where her still lay, firmly attached to the rocks' 'legs', her mind already racing at a hundred miles an hour.

_Ohmygosh, ohmygosh it's real...it's marvelous..it's..it's...The first real ghost to life communication in fraggle rock ! Quickly, quickly, say something historic! Some first line that will be forever written of ..something like..._

"It...it wasn't me." The storyteller peeped.

_Harriet, you dummy._

The white ball of light grew a bit smaller, its' center glowing with a energy that looked as if it would burn to the touch, but only felt like the memory of fresh snow as it hovered inches from the fraggles' face, making her newly replaced glasses fog up.

"No, I can feel your soul, it is one of mature love and gentle grace. I am never wrong."

The voice that accompanied this nearness was like a soothing brother of the words the ghost had spoken before, so warm and even handed it made her mouth feel dry in trying to find words well spoken enough to be fit to be heard in their company.

"Gentle grace?...Well..I..aren't you mad with me?"

The light bobbed up and down, drifting backward to rest on the rocks' 'nose' in a whisper of breeze.

"I? Oh my most humble apologies for my outburst. It is merely ghost custom, you understand. We must always follow custom, to do otherwise would upset the magic."

The storyteller got to her feet, tucking her tail around her legs and dipping down to touch its' tuffed end to her nose in an old fashion fraggle curtsy as the ball of light drifted back into the rock formation.

"Of course...My name is..."

The smaller fraggle gasped at the eerie semi-transparent figure that stepped forward.

His outline matched the rocks' exactly, all in varied shades of gray. Somehow this odd coloring of another world could not hide the fact that his skin and fur had once been a dark orange, with a wispy short beard that moved in the breeze, framing his close set eyes above a long pointed muzzle. A once grand silk cloak adored his shoulders, offsetting a heavy looking armor chestplate, its' apple symbol detailing shining brightly from within.

"Harriet. Your name is Harriet," The knight said, crossing his arms over his chest and bowing to touch the tuff of his tail with a well practiced formality. "Holder of the title of storyteller from the tender pre-job age of eighteen, by the grace of your voice for tales."

Harriet breathed as her heart grew wings, traveling down to her big left toe and up to her baloobius in record time.

She finally found her voice again, fighting against her nature and the very unlady like urge to giggle.

"It's an honor to meet you..." The small voice she had only until now used for one other fraggle stopped short as she fixed the ghost with a silent hopeful look.

The knight rubbed the short ruffled hair between his tuffed ear stocks; a motion of embarrassment that, for all his courtly manners, marked him as having been quite young.

"I'm afraid I seem to have misplaced my name many ages ago. Perhaps I might borrow one of your own, dear Storyteller?"

A mess of pink hair and a pair of glinting glasses were an inch from the spirits' face before his last words even had a chance to be spoken at anything over a murmur.

"Fredrick. You look like a Fredrick." She said simply.

"And you look very like an angel." Fredrick whispered.

Above her head, the Storyteller could feel her winged heart doing cartwheels.


	4. Chapter 4

Even in the last lingering month of autumn, so like winter that it had long driven thoughts of romance out of most fraggle minds, the Kissing Chasm lived up to its name.

Fragrant green grass dotted with morning glories grew tall in their magical pocket of eternal summertime around the chasm itself. The clear water filling the crack drifted by at a lazy babble singing a song of lazy contentment to two tiny frogs sitting upon a lilypad.

The scene was only broken by a faint gentle voice.

"Kermit dear? Are you and Jane playing in that cave water hole again? Supper's ready!"

"Okay Mom!" The little frog replied, as both of the green creatures hopped upward into the sunlight.

In the background, not very far away, the storyteller tossed a new handful of flower petals over her head and laughed where she lay under a handsewn paper parasol.

Only a few hours of sleep separated the previous night to this day, but that hardly mattered now. All those hours, after all, were better filled by the floating gentleman who had insisted on keeping watch for villains by her bedpost all night, and had more than enough stories of the glory of the Elder Clan to last another lifetime.

Somewhere, however, his stories had hit an unspoken sad note and the two had ended up at this Kissing Chasm, where Fredrick now sat floating above a mossy rock, playing a new game.

"And your favorite food is blueberry and lemon..."

"..tarts!" Harriet finished, clapping her hands together in amazement. "Oh, how in the rock did you know _that_?"

The ghost shrugged, taking out a long fancy sword from beneath his cloak and beginning to shine its' equally transparent obsidian blade.

"It is the talent I was given to fulfill my dearest wish in life. I can not swear to love _forever_ if I do not love _truly_."

"Oh, you _are_ a perfect knight..." The storyteller sighed, sitting up to reach out a hand toward him and then stopping short. "Well, _nearly_ perfect."

The ghost wrinkled his muzzle, sending his sword back from where it had come in a puff of smoke, as he drifted down to eye level with the bookish fraggle.

"Something about me does not please you?"

"Well..it is just..I am use to a gentleman fraggle being a _tad_ more..solid." Harriet began in a sympathetic, gentle tone. "But you are a ghost so..."

To her surprise the ghost laughed, a low rich sound that filled the air at the same time as another puff of smoke, this one much bigger with the tell tale glitter of magic.

"Will this do?" The fraggle now floating in the air asked.

She could only stutter. He looked..alive...he looked...

"Perfect.."

"As are you.." The very solid dark orange fraggle with silver hair replied, leading follow; now sporting a mustache and a silver and gold pit helmet that matched his armor.

"Oh no..please, My family still lives by the old code." Harriet whispered despite herself, drawing away quickly.

Fredrick tumbled backward in midair, shaking his head as if trying to clear it before nodding.

"How silly of me to think to moonlight snuggle with a maiden before we would be lifemated. Death must have these lowsome effects on the mind, truly."

"Lifemated?" Harriet asked in a bright cheery tone, her tail perking up at the word.

"Surely, it is your dearest wish is it not?" The newly explorer attired ghost asked where he stood upside down as if it was the most common place thing in the world.

"Well, yes but...there is something," She stuttered again, suddenly interested in her hands as she wrung them nervously. "...right now,I have always wished for more.."

If any other living creature had been at Kissing Chasm at that uncommon hour, in that unromantic season, they might have seen the just as uncommon sight of a tall fraggle spended upside down in midair, as he made the slow romantic gesture of raising the earthbound fraggles' hand to his lips.

"Harriet Fraggle, would you do me the honor of accompanying me to the Pumpkin Festival?"

"Yes." The storyteller replied with tearful eyes.

* * *

_**He asked me on a date.**_

The storyteller sat in the glow of her bedroom lamp, its' central candle ,bathing the small space with a golden glow that matched her sunny mood.

..A mood that, at the moment, her age old habit of talking to herself was trying to undo tirelessly bit by bit.

_Why wouldn't he have?_

Harriet paused, replacing her quill into its' small gourd of ink and a shutting the book she had been writing in.

_**Well...no one ever has before..in my whole life.**_

She sighed, lifting the large volume to the top of a nearby pile that represented her lifes' work, where it wobbled dangerously before settling down.

_What about your date for the end of month school?_

_**That was cousin Clark. The one with the twitch that saw invisible spiders remember?**_

The storyteller sat back down in a huff, blowing a stray piece of hair out of her eyes as she looked into her tall magic mirror.

_Oh..._

_None of that matters now..Fredrick is perfect...Fredrick is perfect and he wants me..He makes me feel...pretty._

She reached for her brush and hair ribbons, that like most of the items that had anything to do with her appearance had long ago taken on a lite mask of dust.

_**Is he perfect?**_

_Of course he is, he can be anything I want him to be and knows me even better than..better than..._

The small yellow fraggle paused mid-brush to glance upward at the painting above her head, the one of a brave young explorer posing heroically..the one she had made the day of his job choosing...

_**If that is perfect love why do you still think about...?**_

The room was filled with a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob as the only truly living creature within it finally spoke aloud to no one.

"Only forty years old and already an _old fool_..."

The gold colored head built into the top molding of the magic mirror shook off the edge of sleep, beganing to hum as the storytellers' low voice rose to meet it.

**Lately when I'm in my room all by myself... in the solitary gloom I call to myself...**

A pair of bookworms stopped their chewing near the fraggles' elbow, rearing up to add another layer if humming to the song as she went back to brushing her hair.

**Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes,**

**love never made a fool of you, you used to be too wise.**

She pulled her hair up, fastening it with a fancy clip before shaking it out into a messy pile of fuzz again, stopping to gaze with wide eyes at the painting.

**Hey there, you on that high flying cloud,**

**Though he won't throw a crumb to you, you think one day he'll come to you...**

She took the painting from its' wall hook, hugging it tightly as she began to spin in lazy dance like circles in the small room.

**Better forget him, him with his nose in the air,**

**He has you dancing on a string, break it and he won't care...**

She gave the painting a last tight hug before replacing it on the wall, tracing it's outline with a finger slowly.

**Will you take this advice, I give to you like a mother?**

**Or am I not getting through too clear?**

**Am I too much in love to hear?**

**Is it all going in one ear and out the other?**

Harriet sat back down at her desk with a thump, burying her head in her arms when the face of her magic mirror head began to join in.

**Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes?**

She peeped out of her fingers meekly.

"Are you talking to me?"

The mirror nodded.

**Love never made a fool of you...**

She sighed, reaching for the fancy hair-clip again.

"Not until now..."

**You used to be too wise.** The mirror finished.

"Yes, I was once..."

The storyteller agreed, fiddling with the clips' clasp with hands that were starting to tremble slightly as she picked up the song again.

**Will you take this advice I give to you like a mother? **

**Or are you not seeing things too clear?**

**Am I just too far gone to hear?**

She fixed herself with a serious stare in the mirror as she twisted her hair upward again, draping her best robe with a necklace of tiny pearls that caught the candlelight.

**Is it all going in one ear and out the other?**


	5. Chapter 5

It was special time, the 'sleeping hour' in the gorgs' garden.

That magical time after the first elephant like snore of the ruler of universe as he turned over in bed ,followed with the elegance and grace of his son and heir, who could clearly be heard doing a nose drive into the soft ashes of the fire place. (Where every fraggle worth their doozer sticks knew he always propped up 'standing guard'.)

The sleeping hour (being a _fraggle_ hour) was of course far too sort for the single fraggle entrusted with gathering radishes from the frozen earth, but was just right for the once a year harvest of the annual pumpkin. Being a _gorg_ pumpkin, it was easy to see why the job needed the help of all the rocks' older fraggles.

This year, much to Harriet's surprise as she hid in the shadow of a leaf as big as her story room, that number was close to eighty.

Normally, this party would have been like all the rest for the storyteller: Sixteen glasses of cranberry juice and a date people watching with her trusty notebook. But not this year...

Not if Fredrick had anything to do with it, at least.

All her best friends, save Merri, were at the moment clustered around the ghost knight like baby fraggles at the radish bar makers. Along with, much to their mates' annoyance, most of the other female fraggles of the rock.

Four or five young fraggles, clearly having escaped from bedtime under the not so watchful eyes of their parents, were sandwiched into the mob as well, their eyes full of awe at the strangers words.

"You really and truly battled a poison cackler?" Indigo asked, her normally high voice ending with an even higher note of excitement that could almost deafen a living fraggle at close range.

Fredrick nodded, a tiny moment so slow and refined that it sent the crowd of fraggles around him into oohs and giggles.

"And a chimera, two dragons, and one particularly grumpy griffin who had not yet had his morning tea...Is it truly that wondrous?"

Fredrick looked surprised when a sea of nods and 'yes's answered back to him, while Harriet's two friends drifted back to her spot in the shadow of the three fraggle high pumpkin.

"Ooooh Harriet, where in the rock did you dig _him_ up?" Indigo asked with a dreamy glaze to her voice.

Harriet chewed on her muzzle, looking everywhere but in her friends' eyes.

"Oh..he was..just _standing_ around on a hill..very lonely and.. um..he hadn't been back in fraggle rock for a..ah.._long_ time."

Merri just rolled her eyes as Indigo when back to grinning broadly over her light blue nose at the distant Fredrick, now being assaulted by the energetic questions of a tiny eighteen year old named Felix.

"Why just being around _that_ makes me want to bake a lifetime supply of snickerdoodles and set up camp in the attic."

Indigo mumbled, not hearing a word of Harriets' explanation as her voice drew down into a scheming whisper.

"..Everet and the children would _never_ find us..there are only _seven_ of them after all, and the _secret_ crawl cave..."

The miniature hill of moving heavy woolen blankets, four scarves and an oversized winter pompom socking cap beside the three gave a few weak sounds of interjection, hoping up and down.

Merri reached over to untuck the wrappings part way, letting the small fraggle out of her protective cocoon enough to gasp in a breath of the nights' fresh air.

"You mumbled incoherently, Constance dear?"

The yellow fraggle resumed hopping, cheerfully grabbing onto Harrets' arm.

"Oh Ety, Fredrick is the _ghost_ knight isn't he? Oh, I _knew_ you could do it!" Constances' grin faded as her voice ended in another cough.

Indigo flashed her with a piercing look, quickly warping the sickly member of their group back into her warm confines.

"Constance, that's just _silly_, why, everyone _knows_ ghosts are see-through! You shouldn't be talking about Freddy that way!" Indigo yelled at her friend cowered.

"Agreed, although he is a bit.. eccentric, he is our guest and..." Merri began one of her famous filibusters, no noticing the approaching shadow of a fraggle in back of them.

"What is it you are speaking of my love?" Fredrick asked, leaning his head next to the Harriet's ear.

The storyteller shivered from head to tail where she stood.

"Nothing..." she answered in a small voice.

Across from her, the over-warped Constance was beginning to shake as well at the sight of the new fraggle being so near.

"Is something amiss?" He asked, the youthful tone in his voice becoming clear again.

Constance pulled down a tiny part of the scarves covering her mouth slowly with a shaking hand.

"...Hi."

"A pleasure to meet you." He answered with a smile as the gaping yellow fraggle was suddenly pulled, blanket collection and all, away to the other side of the pumpkin by her mate.

The red skinned green haired male grumbled a string of not so nice things under his breath as their voices faded around the bend, Constances' cheerful small voice laced with coughing.

"Did you _see_? Did you _see_ Razz? I actually _talked_ to him!"

Merri stepped forward with an elegant flare of the turquoise silk robe she was wearing to pat Fredrick on the hand with a tender glance.

"There, there. I'm so sorry you had to be exposed to that sort of _foolishness_. She is no more than a _child_ really, with a much too active _imagination_."

"Actually I..." Fredrick begin, stopping and looking a bit helpless in Harriet's direction as Merri continued on without noticing.

"To throw such a wild _accusation_ at such a _great_ explorer as yourself is unforgivable..."

"Great explorer?" A voice asked.

"Why yes!" Merri said with renewed enthusiasm, turning toward the the mystery fraggle slowly as she wagged a finger. "Why, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the _best_ explorer in the history of...the...rock...Oh...h..hello Matt."

Merri edged away to the side sheepishly as the Storyteller felt her heart fall into her tail.

The sad, slow, bobbing walk of a mud-stained, and once renowned tan pit helmet was followed just as sadly by its' owner, his eyes downcast over his wispy mustache, as one of his untied shoelaces landed the pitiful figure squarely on his muzzle beside Harriet's feet.

"Oh..Matt! W..what are you doing here?"

She felt her face growing a bright shade of radish red suddenly at the reality of Fredrick standing so near, taking a tiny step to the other side.

"Well..after a short walk though the more perilous areas of the Trail of Autumn Enlightenment it came to my attention that perhaps there was something to be discover in the Gorgs' garden after all..." Traveling Matt said with a serious sniff.

"Oh, you came! You came after all just for..."

Harriet's words stopped as cold as the hug she was just about to run and give her hero as he seemed to see Fredrick for the first time.

"And who is this, here?"

Indigo bit down on her muzzle nervously and Merri shook her head in agreement as the two darted away to the other side of the pumpkin.

The storyteller looked for Matt to Fredrick, biting down on her nails.

"Um..Mattykins..this is Fredrick..my...date."

"Mattykins?" Fredrick mimicked with a puzzled look before looking the other fraggle in the eye.

The two pit-helmeted, mustached, and hiking booted fraggles circled each other. Apart from Fredrick's darker skin and armor Harriet realized suddenly; _They looked exactly alike!_

Had her wishes really made that happen?

"I can see why, he is a _handsome_ fellow, isn't he?" Matt said at last, patting the stranger on the back.

"Why, thank you." Fredrick replied, bowing to him in return.

The storyteller started to let out a bottled up breath she did not even know she had been holding when Matt spoke up again.

"By the by, what is this I here about you being the rocks' greatest explorer?"

Fredrick cocked his head to the side matter of factly.

"They are merely speaking the truth, I have traveled far..."

The tan fraggles' bushy eyebrows drew down ever so slightly.

"I would have to disagree, you're new here so you may not know, but I am the greatest explorer in fraggle rock."Matt said, settling into his trademarked pose.

"Um, boys there's no need to fi..." Harriet began, but was cut short in surprise.

"I would have to respectfully disagree with your disagreement, dear sir." Fredrick said as he posed himself, hoping up on a giant radish to pose even more gallantly. "There is no where I have not gone..."

"All right, everyone, everyone, it's time to harvest the pumpkin!" The world's oldest fraggle yelled with a cheerful smile though his lackeys blow-horn, and was met by cheers from all but a certain three fraggles.

"The Singing Caverns?" Traveling Matt asked with a glare as they each took their places at opposite sides of the squash, the storyteller trying her best to peek around the middle edge to keep an eye on both at the same time.

"Of course." The knight answered with a glare of his own.

"Okay everyone, heave..." The distant booming oldest fraggles' voice began.

"HO!" The whole crowd around the three replied energetically, lifting the the years supply of food over their heads in one mighty group effort.

"Chimney Hole Cavern?" Traveling Matt continued, his voice strained under the great weight as the whole gathering made a mad dash for fraggle rock together like a troop of multicolored ants.

"Frequently." Fredrick replied, not sounding the least bit affected by the burden at all.

"The Great Outer Maze?" Matt growled, barely able to talk as the entrance came into sight at last.

" Surely you jest, that is my summer cave." Fredrick yawned, letting go of the pumpkin and reappearing, as bold as brass, to the side of the struggling Matt.

The whole pumpkin dipped and weaved dangerously at the sudden loss of a much needed helping hand.

"Well, Sir." The tan fraggle began, walking out from the pumpkin as well to meet his orange doppelgänger as casually as ridding himself of gloves. " You may be well traveled but no one in all the rock can be as brave as the great Traveling Matt!"

In the background the pumpkin now weaved sharply the other direction, doing a dizzy spin.

"Oh brave are you?"

"Yes!"

"And great you say?

"Without a doubt!"

"We've all going to die!" Came the shrill cry of Indigo's as the pumpkin traveled the other way again.

"Then why have you not slew a dragon?"

"I've never met one, but I'm sure I could manage easily..."

"Whata way to go, killed by pie filling..." Indigo's voice came again.

By this time both traveling fraggles were red with rage, even if one was by all accounts, an illusion.

The crowd of pumpkin toting fraggles breathed as huge sigh of relief as the vegetables large woody stem caught on the upper rocks of the entrance, steadying it.

"If you are so brave and worthy why is it you have not yet lifemated Harriet?" The ghost knight spat, jabbing a finger into the a bit to round midsection of Traveling Matts' safari outfit.

For a moment the explorer said nothing, quaking with raw fury as he twisted down his nose.

It was a short moment.

"You, you little batworm! I'll have you know that if we were old and grey and still unwed I would be more than brave enough to..That is...I mean..." He looked over ever so slowly to the side.

The Storyteller stepped forward, her eyes wide behind their silver framed glasses, trails of tears upon her cheeks catching the moonlight.

Over her shoulder the entire adult population of fraggledom let out a trailing scream as they tumbled into fraggle rock, pumpkin first.

"Oh Matt, you do care!" Harriet exclaimed, zipping other to hug his side.

"Now, wait, he tricked me into saying." Matt began, and sputtered. "..That is Harriet it's not that I..."

But he was too late. His oldest fan in true hugging mode was already miles away atop a nearby cloud.


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

Epilogue

* * *

On the wind beaten hilltop of Goldengrass the loud sound of crying could be heard by every passing doozer as they turned in for the night, some walking just a bit slower in their tiny insect size yellow boots, feeler topped heads bowed.

Harriet had to admit with a sting of regret that even his uncontrollable sobbing had a touch of heroism...

One that any storyteller...that she, would never tire of retelling.

"Oh Fredrick, Fredrick.." She whispered, reaching upward.

The knight had since returned to his true form, hanging in all his semi-transparent glory over the rock where they had first met.

"You knew, didn't you? You knew my feelings. I'm sorry, but I love Matt..You understand don't you? Oh don't cry, I know how it feels when..."

Fredrick sniffed with a metallic sound, blowing his nose on a tissue that popped into being and was gone just as quickly.

"I cry.... not for myself... but for youuu..." The ghost wailed in an almost banshee like howl, making the pink haired fraggle before him clap her hands to her ears.

"For... me?" She asked when the wind stopped ringing.

Fredrick rolled over in the air, drawing himself up in a fuzzy protective ball and leaving only his tail in view where it hung toward the ground without so much as a twitch.

"My heart has betrayed you, I..I too love another...her name in life was... Gwenalot."

"Gwenalot." The storyteller mouthed, her eyes lighting up with a a sudden flash of understanding.

"She is buried as a princess should be..." Fredrick continued in a flat voice, spinning a length of ceiling moss around his finger where he lay. "...Under the boughs of a golden apple tree."

The yellow fraggle was already shaking with laughter as she took off her glasses to rub her eyes. Fredrick turned sharply in shock.

"Oh, don't worry, you aren't betraying me. Good heavens, you _helped_ me and I'm grateful as it is! Why don't you go visit..this princess then then?"

The ghost made a dipping motion in the air, one that she was sure, if he had still had any lungs, would have been a relieved sigh.

"I know where she is, but sadly my soul must have a suitable anchor to this world to rest within, and yet I have never found..."

Harriet cut him off with a crazy driven glint playing across her eyeglasses, talking at a mile a minute.

" Could you show me where this tree is? Does this 'anchor' have to be a rock?"

Fredrick nodded, slowly edging back into his white sphere shape as if a bit afraid.

"Yes, certainly but...No..I suppose with the proper magic nearly _anything_ would..."

"Wait right there!" She ended, zipping off down the hill as fast as her new idea could run.

* * *

It was a wonder to behold...or at least, it was _something_ to be beheld.

The tall, scarecrow like dummy, with a muzzle made out of coconut shells, beady eyes made from the purest of white pebbles, and fur of cotton scraps grinned its' berry ink dyed tongue in the wind for the first time as it was raised upright by an odd looking fraggle and an equally odd large magical looking circle of light.

"There! I'm no seesaw repairer so its' really not that good, but there is an attachment so you can choose if you want to open the way down, how do you like...?"

The storyteller was stopped as the light reformed itself into a body once more, this time keeping its' bright overworld light beneath the surface.

"It is beautiful...as you always will be. I am forever in your service...and.."

The ghost drifted toward the scarecrow with a small smile.

"My true name...I remember now...it is..."

The storyteller stepped forward with a last curtsey, her voice small like a childs.

"Arthuridan. The Princess Gwenalot's love Arthuridan. I read about those stores a long long time ago..." She smiled, looking up at him. "You... always were... my favorite."

As the glittering shape of the legendary first knight of the stone table melted into the body of the sloppy looking dummy to guard the entrance to the stairwell below for all time, Harriet was still smiling.

It might take nearly a lifetime, but now, now she had hope.

Until then, page fifty-seven would do...

Yes. Yes, it would.

**The End**


End file.
